I suppose I look at adding adventure elements in a different fashion. I like RPGs to allow for multiple solutions to as many problems as possible. I don't see it as adding adventure elements to RPG, I just see it as good RPG design.

Hints are good and bad. As a long-time adventure gamer as well as RPGer, even without hints, I usually find the adventure route. When I'm hinted that it's there, it takes some of the fun of discovery away. I always liked there being rewards for the player who takes the time to look in nooks and crannies and takes his or her time in the game. On the other hand, another gamer will, as you say, just miss all that effort put into alternate options if they aren't nudged.

I don't see an easy answer to this. One option is for users to be able to control the hinting just like they can something more mundane like monster difficulty, but we're talking about adding even more coding/scripting on top of all the coding necessary for putting in multiple options in the first place.

Most importantly, I'm just glad there are developers out there who give these things thought!